


find out they're empty

by freezerjerky



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: First Meetings, Kid Fic, Kid Newton Geiszler, M/M, Misgendering, Operas, Trans Male Character, Trans Newton Geiszler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 19:51:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18156284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freezerjerky/pseuds/freezerjerky
Summary: Newt zones out completely halfway through the conversation about how inappropriate his converses are for the situation. He’s heard it before, but his dad only asked once if he wanted to wear different shoes. These are the shoes he likes to wear, that he feels most comfortable in. He can easily take the upbraiding, it’s much easier than telling the truth. He’d be fawned over, told he was a very precious boy and what talent he himself must have if he’d just come clean about his reason for being at the concert. He knows this because it’s happened to him since he was young.When he was smaller, Monica would parade him around, put him in cute outfits and tell everyone how proud she was of her child. She’d make comments on Newt’s brightness and brilliance without actually knowing what interested him or made him tick. Often when she did find out, she was disappointed or disgusted. He learned early on to keep his mouth shut in these situations.or Newt thinks he's going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy





	find out they're empty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [adropofred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adropofred/gifts).



> This fic is heavily inspired by headcanons and concepts explored with the fantastic and wonderful and talented [Aloïs](a%20href=) so much credit and much <3
> 
> Warning for general bad and transphobic parenting, of course. This is a very specific take on Newt's mother and I encourage you all to hold close to your own interpretations, write what you like etc etc. Monica does use some incorrectly gendered language in this, so if that's an issue or a trigger, be warned. It's always shown as the negative it is.
> 
> Title from "Something to Believe In" by Aqualung

Monica is beautiful. Newt knows this objectively but the concept of beauty doesn’t mean anything to him. Beauty doesn’t raise a child. Dad has told him countless times that he shouldn’t call Monica by her first name, but call her Mom instead, but he’s never corrected Newt when he says it. When Newt calls her that to her face she doesn’t flinch, it doesn’t even seem to occur to her that she should be called Mom and not Monica by this small, grubby child with smudged glasses and scraped knees.

There’s a picture of Monica on his nightstand, right next to the one from his fishing trip where he’s standing proudly between his dad and uncle showing off the very large trout he caught. As a much smaller child, Newt would laugh at how big Monica’s hair looks in the photo, where she can’t be much older than twenty, a few years before Newt was born. Now, Newt’s more interested in the way her eyes seem to betray something that he can’t trace in his young age, that he hopes he understands when he’s older. They’re sad but teasing and though the picture doesn’t show it very well, they’re the same hazel green shade as Newt’s own eyes.

Newt’s still pretending to be asleep in bed, staring at the photo on his nightstand when Dad comes in, sits at the edge of his bed.

“Hey, buddy,” his dad says softly. “I was just on the phone with your mom. She’s coming to New York later this week and wanted to know if I could drive you down to see her.”

Last time Monica came to New York she didn’t even have time after her concert to see Newt for more than a few minutes. She’d stayed living in Berlin after the three of them moved to Boston, pursuing the same life she always lived. Newt’s not an expert on moms and what they’re supposed to do but he’s not sure Monica’s delivering anything remotely mom-like. He hates going to her concerts.

“Is it a school night?” Newt asks, sitting up in bed. His pajamas have dinosaurs on them and he’s taking classes at the local middle school already.

“It’s on a school night, so I’ll get you out of school early and you can stay home the next day. I’ll take off and we can hang out, just us guys.”

That seems a bit more appealing. Usually when they have a special day they’ll go to a museum or get ice cream or, when the weather’s nicer, explore outside so Newt can classify bugs or hunt for amphibians in the pond. (Dad will always joke that the best amphibian Newt’s caught is himself, coming home one day and resolutely declaring that he would be called Newt from that day forward.)

“I don’t wanna miss school.” Newt rubs his tired eyes. “Can’t she come up here to see me instead?”

Dad sighs, ruffles Newt’s hair as though that’s a consolation. “I tried to suggest that, kiddo but she was insistent and she probably won’t be free to see you again until the New Year.”

Newt’s nine now and he’s past the point of crying about never seeing Monica now that he lives so far away. He barely saw her when he lived close, even during the times she’d lived with them. (And then always, always in a flurry of suitcases departed as abruptly as she came.) He loves Monica, the same way he loves any adult who doesn’t actively harm him and plays a role in his life, but he doesn’t need her, doesn’t want her in his life the way he needs Dad around.

“So she’s not coming for Christmas?” he asks with a sigh. There are some days when it matters to be around.

“No, but she said maybe for your birthday. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

He shrugs and sinks back under the covers. “I like spending my birthdays with you and Illia.” Monica has a way of making holidays about herself, because that’s what beautiful people do. At least that’s what Newt’s learned that beautiful people do from watching movies.

“She’ll just have to do whatever we want to do, alright?”

For some reason, Newt can’t imagine Monica at Chuck E Cheese or going for a walk in the woods. It doesn’t do anything to tell his dad that, so he closes his eyes and rolls away from him, instead staring at the Godzilla poster on his wall. The bed dips a bit as Dad stands and moves towards the doorway, hovering for a moment.

“Dad?” Newt asks, when he’s sure he’s about to leave.

“Yeah, buddy?”

“I really don’t want to miss school to go to some dumb concert.”

“I know you don’t, but I promise we’ll have a good day afterwards and next time I talk to her I’ll tell her she can only do this on weekends.”

Newt trusts his dad will always do the right thing, he very rarely lets him down. His dad, Jacob, is not beautiful, but he’s got soft eyes and the barest hint of a bald spot on the back of his head. There isn’t a picture of just him on his nightstand, but he gets to see his dad almost every day and that’s more than alright by him.

 

The concert is boring. Most of Monica’s concerts are boring. She wears pretty dresses and stands on the stage and sings for a crowd of people who are also wearing pretty dresses or suits and seem very interested. Newt’s been to a few of her operas and those aren’t so bad because they have plots and fun costumes. Sometimes, his dad will stay with him for the concert, but tonight he’s going to meet with a friend. It’s really hard to fault him for wanting to do this, Newt thinks, when he spends most of his nights with a kid.

He’s got the phone number for his hotel room and the hotel lobby written down, though, in case he needs his dad, who has promised to come get him as soon as he needs to go home. It’s on a sheet of paper from the pad from the hotel and dad’s also scribbled out “love you” with an accompanying smiley face which Newt finds oddly comforting. He leans forward during the concert, resting his head in his arms on the balcony to rest until the old woman sitting behind him scolds him for sitting improperly. He apologizes and says he’s tired and she lets him know that’s no excuse, doesn’t he know he’s watching one of the most talented voices in the world? And oh, he should be honored to be so cultured at such a young age.

Newt zones out completely halfway through the conversation about how inappropriate his converses are for the situation. He’s heard it before, but his dad only asked once if he wanted to wear different shoes. These are the shoes he likes to wear, that he feels most comfortable in. He can easily take the upbraiding, it’s much easier than telling the truth. He’d be fawned over, told he was a very precious boy and what talent he himself must have if he’d just come clean about his reason for being at the concert. He knows this because it’s happened to him since he was young.

When he was smaller, Monica would parade him around, put him in cute outfits and tell everyone how proud she was of her child. She’d make comments on Newt’s brightness and brilliance without actually knowing what interested him or made him tick. Often when she did find out, she was disappointed or disgusted. He learned early on to keep his mouth shut in these situations.

After the concert, already more than half asleep, he eats dinner with Monica at a very expensive restaurant across the street. Dad already bought him McDonald’s before the concert so he didn’t get too hungry, so he’s really not in the mood for any of this fancy food, but Monica does love to put on a show.

“Sweetheart,” she says, laying her accent on thick, “why are you wearing those shoes? Why aren’t you wearing the pretty things I sent to you to wear?”

Newt doesn’t look up as he pushes his food across the plate. “I don’t wear pretty things, Mon. Dad said I don’t have to wear anything you send if I don’t want to.” Monica doesn’t dare say the word dresses but Newt knows full well that’s what she means by pretty things.

“Those weren’t cheap and I just want you to have nice things, you understand. It’s bad enough Jacob cuts your hair so short-”

“I cut it the way I want it.” Newt glances up at her then. “Can I go back to dad now? I’m tired and not very hungry.”

“Don’t be ungrateful, I’ve taken you to a very nice restaurant.”

“But I’m not hungry, Monica. Can I please call dad?”

“No, don’t be so childish.”

“I am a child,” Newt protests, pushing his food some more. “I just want to go to sleep. It’s past my bedtime.”

“Other kids would be grateful for the opportunity to stay up so late. And for their mother to buy such nice clothes for them. What happened to my little baby who would perform at all my parties?”

“I’m nine. I don’t want to do those things anymore. I don’t even play piano that much anymore.” Newt thinks he’s explaining well enough, but Monica seems unimpressed.

“Well, shouldn’t your father be teaching you? A musical talent is an awful thing to waste.”

“I’m learning guitar and uncle Illia said he’ll teach me drums.”

Monica leans back with her glass of wine and scoffs. “Ah yes, your Uncle Illia. As though that bum doesn’t have better things to do with his life.”

Newt might still be a kid who doesn’t understand certain nuances, but he knows that Monica is wrong to say things like that about Illia who knows better about raising kids than Monica ever will. Who knows how to love people without making them feel bad. How to teach Newt what he wants to learn and help him be who he is.

“They both work all day, Monica.” Newt blinks at her a few times. “Can I please call my dad now?”

If he doesn’t call his dad, he’ll have to wait until Monica is ready to drop him off, and he’s not sure how long that will take. Newt doesn’t trust her to not be spiteful.

“Don’t you want to spend some time with your mother?I hardly ever see my baby and you’re getting so big now, you’ll be a grown up before you know it.”

He doesn’t feel like a grown-up, he feels like he wants to throw himself on the floor and have a tantrum until he gets what he wants. There’s tears pricking at his eyes, and a passing waitress asks if everything is quite alright and Monica only glares at the both of them. Half-asleep and beyond frustrated, Newt is trapped having small talk with Monica until she excuses herself to the bathroom.

Newt’s not grown-up yet, but he hops off his seat and goes back to the hostess stand, holding out the sheet of paper as he explains that he wants to call his dad to come get him because he’s tired. He’s grateful that he’s never been shy a day in his life right then. He’s walking back to the table at the same time as Monica, who does not look pleased at all with him.

“And what were you up to?” she asks. “Hopefully not causing too much trouble. You know what they say little gi...kids should be seen and not heard.”

The phrase is unfamiliar to Newt, and doesn’t seem to make sense. He wonders, in the back of his mind, if sometimes Monica doesn’t say things to remind him that she’s never going to see him the right way. But he’s known this, Monica’s never going to love him for who he is, or even for who he’s not. 

“I just wanted to go home,” Newt defends. “I want to go to sleep. Dad said you can come for my birthday and that’s coming soon.”

“The way he lets you carry on,” she reprimands. “Calling yourself whatever you want, wearing those ratty sneakers to a nice concert, doesn’t he care how that looks to people? You need to look respectable, like the child of two very respectable people. If you lived with me you’d-”

“But I don’t,” Newt half shouts. “You never wanted me-” He had more that he wanted to say, he wanted to clarify that she didn’t want him to live with her, but it seemed appropriate enough to stop. The frustration and the tired feeling bubbles up in his chest and he heaves out a sob.

Monica’s left looking dumbfounded at him, too shocked to even complain about him making a scene. (He knows she’d do just that.)

“Hey, please don’t cry,” she comments. “Don’t be- don’t be crying.”

It’s at that moment that Newt’s dad enters with a quiet righteous fury, he doesn’t hesitate as he steps in and picks up his child. Newt is nine and too big to be held, but he still holds on tightly to his father’s neck.

“When he says he’s uncomfortable and wants to go home, he goes home,” Dad says coolly. “If you can’t do that, you can’t be in his life.”

“I hardly see him, Jacob, I wanted to-”

“We’re up in Boston,” he snaps. “All the time. I’m not keeping him from you. It’s a school night and I did this for you, but he’s tired. He’s just a kid.”

“Old enough to show some respect to his mother.”

Newt’s glad he can’t see what’s going on in that moment, can’t tell what’s passing in the restaurant, but he can feel the way his father tenses.

“If you don’t watch yourself, Monica, you’re not going to have any relationship with your child when he’s no longer a kid. And he’s going to be a great man some day, I’d hate for you to miss out on that.”

They don’t say another word to Monica on their way out, but Newt’s very glad to discover a cab waiting outside of the restaurant and the hotel only a short cab ride away. He’s grateful, beyond relieved and glad for his father. His father is a shining hero in his eyes, a person to aspire to be in that moment. The next day is one of the best days that Newt remembers.

 

Newt learns piece by piece the backstory of his father and Monica. Some things are obvious on their own, others he asks Illia as he gets older, and finally when he’s sixteen his dad sits him down and explains it all. Most kids that age, he realizes, get the birds and bees talk, but Newt’s already in college, already knows about these things. (Entirely secondhand information.) Instead, he gets told all of the details of his parents’ coupling and uncoupling and several attempts at recoupling.

“I was married when I met your mother,” Jacob begins, sitting on the edge of Newt’s dorm bed. He’s brought Newt cake and some presents and they’re both eating a slice of sickly sweet cake. “So was she. I’m not proud of the cheating, and I’m definitely not proud of what it did to my wife. We were all too young and it was a brief thing, but I ended my marriage because of the guilt. To this day I don’t know why Monica ended hers.”

For the most part, Newt doesn’t understand interpersonal relationships. He certainly doesn’t understand passion, or what it would be like to like someone else so much. Hopefully this is because he’s so young and not some deficiency on his part.

“I think I loved her,” Jacob continues, looking firmly at Newt’s posters. “It was more passion than love, a burning. We understood each other in such a profound way, that sort of kindred spirit bond which, if it was coupled with true understanding and love can be immense but-”

“Monica’s Monica,” Newt offers. There’s no picture of Monica on his nightstand now. He keeps the picture with his father and his uncle on his desk.

“She’ll always be like that, I think. Anyway, I’d lost contact until she showed up with a very tiny baby. Asked for a place to stay, and I wasn’t one to turn her away. She said the kid was mine and I didn’t have any proof otherwise, so I let her stay.”

“Didn’t at least ask for a paternity test?” Newt half jokes. The family resemblance between them is far too striking to doubt his paternity and his love for his father makes the idea laughable regardless.

“Nah, and I got the proof I needed with the kid I got.” Jacob smiles at him. “We lived together off and on for a few years. We were together for the first year of your life, though she was touring for much of it, and I said that wasn’t sustainable and we split. And then got back together, and then split again and- I’m sure you know the cycle.”

Newt laughs. He dimly remembers his mother coming into and out of his life during the early years, each phase something new. Occasionally, she’d want to play the part of dutiful mother to show him off, but usually she was just another person in the house. Often his father would say she was staying on their couch for a few nights, but she wouldn’t end up there at all. Newt’s old enough to know that his father is a flawed person and love him anyway. He doesn’t understand relationships but he’s witnessed enough on television and among his classmates to understand that sex is a complex thing and even his father, middle aged and charmingly round, has a romantic life.

“Eventually,” Jacob states, stabbing at his cake. “Illia told us that enough was enough. We were going to go someplace far away where she couldn’t keep us in that cycle. She made a big scene about signing away any custody of you but she-” He stops, debating for a moment.

“Dad, I get it. She didn’t actually want custody of me. It’s really no secret.” Does it still sting? Sure. But Newt’s living with it. He’s no longer the little boy crying because his mother doesn’t want him.

“She still signed it away. And then we came to Boston, far enough away she wouldn’t keep moving in and out. It wasn’t fair or healthy for any of us and your uncle gave me enough of an earful to talk me into it.”

“D’you ever regret it?” Newt asks frankly. He’s cast his cake slice aside, resting it on his nightstand. “Moving all the way here, away from everyone else.”

“Of course not, Newt. It helped me be a better dad and really focus on raising you into the excellent young man you’ve become.”

“So can I take the car for a joy ride or not?” Newt asks, trying to keep from wanting to do something foolish like cry as he leans in closer to his father.

“After you’ve gotten your permit.”

Jacob is not afraid of emotions, though, and pulls his son into a hug. Newt holds onto him tightly, blessed to have a parent who cares so much for him. He never does get around to getting his permit.

 

Hermann Gottlieb is the first man Newt’s ever loved and Newt hopes that he’s going to be the last. Or rather, Newt hopes he’s going to be the only. From the first letter, they’ve connected so well, like they were waiting for each other their whole lives. When presented with the opportunity to meet in person, Newt booked his flight almost impulsively quick. It’s a chance to get away, no doubt, from his work, and to relax in the face of a terrifying world. It’s also a chance for true love, a concept Newt’s never fully believed in until he searched Google for images of Hermann.

The conference they’re attending is in Berlin, which Hermann is very familiar with from his own schooling and Newt dimly remembers from living there as a child and trips through his adolescence. The first few hours together are awkward, spent looking at sights and neither of them knowing fully what to say until after dinner, when Newt blurts out an invitation to his hotel room. Then end up in Hermann’s, but the point still stands.

The following afternoon, they’re still undressed and still mostly in bed. (Though Newt did answer the door in a robe to pick up room service for breakfast and lunch. Hermann’s father is paying for the hotel and likely won’t notice, or question that they’re not at the actual conference.) 

“Do you want to maybe go someplace tonight?” Hermann asks as he carefully sits up. They’ve just finished lunch, and then their after lunch romp. Hermann’s sort of awful but definitely cute haircut looks exceptionally cute when his hair is sticking up. Newt watched him try to fix it in front of the mirror for five minutes that morning.

“Sure, I mean. I didn’t come all this way to spend the whole time in the hotel room,” Newt says. He came all this way to go to a conference, which neither of them are attending.

“My father bought me tickets to a concert.”

“Oh, cool. What kind of concert?” Newt sits up beside him and leans over to kiss Hermann’s neck. He can’t imagine that Lars Gottlieb has any sort of good taste in music.

“Well, erm. It’s an opera, technically. I don’t know if that’s something that really interests you but I thought-”

“No, opera’s fine.” Newt doesn’t know how to begin to convey all the ways in which opera is not fine by him. He wonders if Hermann knows, if Hermann did as thorough of an internet search on him as he did of Hermann.

“Are you sure? I don’t like to assume but it doesn’t really seem your style.”

“Nah,” Newt answers, trying to keep his tone teasing. “Is it like...a French opera or Italian?”

“Italian.”

“Oh, excellent.” Newt laughs and kisses Hermann. As long as he can keep kissing Hermann he doesn’t care what language the opera is in, this is what matters. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do when the conference is over and he has to go home, but for now he’s going to take Hermann however he can have him. And he plans on having him.

“Now, we've still got a few hours, Newton.”

“Hermann, dude. My legs feel like jelly. I couldn't possibly if I wanted to. Besides, I'm gonna need to shower and try to put together a presentable outfit for this.”

“Just one more, darling. Then we can even leave the room.”

Newt turns to him and kisses him harder than before. Just one more, then another couple thousand will suit him just fine.

 

The solitary suit he's brought for the conference looks presentable for the opera. He's only got a pair of converses to wear and something about that concept seems familiar. If Newt is underdressed, he doesn't realize it or care because Hermann seems to like him exactly how he is. 

It's actually cute how nervous Hermann is, worried that Newt will not have a good time. Opera isn't Newt's usual choice for a first date, but he appreciates it for what it is even if he's never going to be deeply moved by it. There's other music to touch his soul. Hermann loves it, though, the way his eyes light up is spectacular. With startling clarity he can imagine a young Hermann being taken to the opera by his parents and enjoying every moment of it. He envies Hermann that love and there’s a dim thought in the back of his mind, a tricky and awful thing that maybe he’d have earned his mother’s love if he could have made himself like her music.

When Newt realizes the opera in question is  _ La boh _ _ è _ _ me  _ he almost laughs. Not only has he seen his mother in this play several times, but he’s seen several performances of  _ Rent.  _ He’s more than aware of the plot at this point and he can focus on other things, like the fact that Hermann looks absurd holding his little opera glasses and that this is possibly the first show like this he’s enjoyed in years. It’s amazing how much good company can transform everything. Hermann even lets him talk, make his own private asides during the show. Apparently, Hermann’s father is connected enough to get them balcony seats and Newt appreciates the relative privacy, he also appreciates that no one else comments on the way they’re whispering throughout the show.

“It’s not appropriate to talk so much during an opera, you know,” Hermann remarks during intermission. He’s just taken Newt’s hand in his own, the only public display of affection he seems to allow.

“You didn’t seem to mind it,” Newt says.

“Are you enjoying yourself? I realize this is probably not your typical taste in concerts or dates but I wanted to take you out.”

“Well, actually Hermann, I don’t know if you knew this but-”

Newt’s words fail him completely as he catches a familiar sight across the auditorium, seated in the balcony directly across from them. He can’t see well from this far, but he thinks he can detect the faintest hint of a knowing smile across the way.

“Newton?” Hermann asks, lifting the glasses to his face. He’s just the sort of nosy person to not care about doing this sort of thing. “Oh, she is a very beautiful woman, isn’t she?”

The words are about to come when Hermann cuts in again.

“That’s Monica Schwartz!” he exclaims. “I met her when I was a boy. She’d gone to a few of my father’s parties when he was showing off how wonderfully wealthy he was, and I’ve seen her perform a few times. She was one of the most popular opera singers in the world when we were children, she always seemed to lead such a glamorous and scandalous life- with her lovers and her beautiful dresses.”

“Lovers?” Newt squeaks. He’s never thought this much about the intricacies of his mother’s life. She’d become a caricature to him in her own right, that he almost forgets she has a life outside of the meager attention given to her child.

“I was just a boy, but I always remember everyone whispering around her, like she was some great and terrible secret. All I remember is that she seemed kind.”

The instinct to shout is only shut down by the dimming of the lights in the theater, a signal that the intermission is ending and the show is going to continue. Newt doesn’t think he catches a single detail, and he considers himself lucky that he knows the show so that he can keep up the conversation with Hermann. He pointedly doesn’t look Monica’s way for the rest of the evening.

When the show’s over and everyone’s taken their bows, Newt’s bolting as fast as he can towards the door, hoping to avoid any potential awkward moments. He can’t imagine that Monica would seek him out. She benefits nothing from acknowledging him in such a crowded space where she’s probably with her friends and lovers. She has barely reached out to him since he turned eighteen. But Newt can’t risk it, not when he’s with the thing that’s gone most right in his life.

“Newton, Newton,” Hermann calls after him. “You need to slow down. I can’t walk that fast. I know you’re eager to get back to the hotel, but I thought we could have a drink first.”

Newt stops at the bottom of the steps to wait for Hermann to catch up properly. “Oh, of course. Sorry.”

“I just want to do this right. As much as I enjoyed our all day romp, I want to show you that I’m interested in more than-”

“Newt, you wicked boy,” exclaims Monica, descending the same staircase only a few moments later. She looks overdressed compared to the others in the crowd and yet somehow makes them look out of place. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to be in Berlin?”

Hermann turns pale and tries to shift a pointed look at Newt, but Newt can’t bring himself to meet his eye. Monica doesn’t hug him or anything too over the top, but she does press a firm kiss to Newt’s cheek. At least she’s calling Newt a man, though he supposes there’s been no value in passive aggression since he started growing facial hair.

“I’m here for work,” Newt answers. “A conference. I’m only here tonight because Hermann’s father bought him tickets.”

“You could have had a place to stay, we could have gotten dinner,” Monica says, turning a charming smile towards them, then to Hermann. “Your father had mentioned there was a young man last time I spoke to him, but he didn’t say anything about a handsome young man.”

“We’ve met,” Hermann cuts in. “I was a child, but you know my father, Dr. Lars Gottlieb.”

Monica’s expression betrays for a moment that she doesn’t care an ounce for anyone with a doctorate that she can’t use to make herself look good, but then she shifts back to her neutral expression.

“Then it’s a pleasure to meet you again,” she states. “Why don’t both of you join me for a drink?”

“We have plans,” Hermann answers. Newt’s relieved that he doesn’t have to lie and that Hermann seems to understand that he doesn’t want to do this. “Otherwise I’m sure it would be both of our pleasure.”

“Oh, more’s the pity. Newt, if you’ve got time when you’re still in Germany, give me a call. You know I’d always love to see you.”

“Yeah, Mon.” Newt suddenly feels like he’s a kid again, powerless to the vacuum of Monica and her tragically beautiful eyes. In the after show haze he sees her as the same powerful force she was in his childhood, full figured, imposingly tall despite being naturally rather short. He doesn’t think there’s a hint of grey in her hair.

She kisses his cheek again and then hurries away, likely to someone else she thinks she needs to charm. Newt hasn’t seen her for a few years and hopes it’s more than a few years before he sees her again, if seeing her for only a few moments leaves him this upset. Silently, he leads Hermann out of the opera house and onto the street.

“You didn’t say anything about knowing Monica Schwartz,” Hermann says, walking beside him in what Newt assumes and hopes is the direction of their hotel. “How long have you known her?”

“Hermann, man.” Newt stops in his tracks, and his voice suddenly feels so small and tight and for some reason he feels like crying. “She's my mom.”

“That's not- How is that- That's not possible.”

“Do I need to pull out my birth certificate? It's more than possible, it's the truth.”

“I would have known if she was your mother.”

“Can't believe I'd have such a beautiful mother? Such a flake? Someone with such a glamorous life?”

When Hermann reaches for him, Newt pulls away and starts walking too fast for Hermann to follow properly. He doesn’t know how to face Hermann, doesn’t know why it’s so hard to face Hermann. Hermann didn’t know who she was, he has the opportunity to change the way he thinks about her now that he knows who she is, what she is to Newt. What she isn’t to Newt.

“Newton!” Hermann calls after him. “Can you stop for just a minute to talk to me?”

“What’s there to talk about?” Newt answers, whipping around to face him. Thankfully there’s no one else on the street.

“I know you don’t have a good relationship with your mother, that must have been very uncomfortable for you.” Newt’s revealed that much in his letters and in ordinary circumstances he’d be impressed and pleased that Hermann even remembers.

“Oh no, I love it when my lovers talk about how my mother was glamorous and had many lovers. Really drives home how good her life was without me.”

“That’s her loss, you know. Not being around you.”

“That’s what everyone’s been saying my entire life, acting like they know better than I do who I do and don’t need and-”

Hermann catches up with him then and reaches for his hand. Newt flinches away for a moment but lets him take his hand.

“Let’s go back to the hotel, we can talk about this at the hotel, Newton.”

“That’s where I’m going,” Newt states.

“I know. I think I know. To be honest, you’re scaring me right now.”

Newt blinks a few times at him, confused by his fear until he realizes how manic he must seem, tears threatening to fall as he all but runs away. The articulation of the thought, the idea of this freshly opened wound being so profoundly exposed, is difficult to explain. He opens his mouth to speak it, but the words don’t come. Instead, Hermann pulls him into an awkward but meaningful embrace, patting his back.

“I don’t know how it feels to have an absent parent,” Hermann says. “At least not physically. Nor will I try to compare my situation to yours, but I do know that you’re an incredible young man and she missed out on having any active part in raising you.”

He nods against Hermann’s shoulder and fights any urge he has to fall apart. They go back to the hotel room and talk until it’s late and then fall apart in a completely different, much more enjoyable way.

 

That night, Newt dreams of his mother. In the dream she’s young and vibrant, spilling attractively out of her dress as she darts around her party, showing off the small child she all but drags from person to person. She affectionately rests her cheek on the child’s head and coos, telling everyone that this is her baby. Newt’s father is there too, even though he’s not sure if he ever remembers his father going to these sorts of events.

He feels, perhaps far too strongly, the jealousy his father feels with each man she glances at. He feels, too, how much Monica’s targeting this at his father. It’s a clarity he wasn’t given as a child, a clarity he was shielded from by his father’s softness and kindness. But he’d known all the while deep down that it was a game, and the winner was the parent who didn’t try to drag their innocent child into it.

Through an indifferent eye, Newt sees Monica perching the child on her knee, asking with fake sweetness for him to sing and the sheer obedience as he does. He warbles out a feeble song and when he finishes is prompted for more, more, more, until Jacob approaches and takes the child by the hand. Calmly, he is lifted away to safety.

Then the boy is fourteen and can’t be carried any longer, can’t be coddled. Newt remembers this better, feels this more acutely as he seeps into the screaming void of adolescence. Monica is the only audience member in a crowd and Newt’s hair is dyed blue and she’s not impressed. He stands on stage and sings about her (shouts if he’s honest with himself) and she stares with cool and indifferent eyes even as he begs for something more. He will never be given more, because there’s simply no more to give.

He sits on the stage, cross legged on the edge. He’s no longer fourteen or small, but himself, an adult man. Monica remains the ever present force, she doesn’t age in Newt’s mind or his dreams. He cannot conceive of the idea that Monica will grow old, in a way she hasn’t earned it and doesn’t deserve it.

“Mom,” Newt says, the words feel as foreign as they are desired. “Mon. I’m gonna fuck this up, and it’s not your fault, but it’s not not your fault.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Well, as much as I hate you, I think deep down I know that I  _ am  _ you, like there’s parts of you I can’t shake.”

“Newt, you idiot boy, you are-”

He sniffles. “I don’t want to screw this up like you screw everything up. I don’t want to ruin this because I’m not like you and I’m not like dad and I’m not going to spend my life hurting him just to spite him.”

When Newt wakes up, it’s just starting to get light and he manages to pack his things as quietly as he can manage. He doubts Hermann will understand, because he scarcely does, but he hopes one day Hermann can forgive him. He’s allowing himself to be selfish enough to hope Hermann cares enough that he’s breaking his heart a little- not too much. The last thing Newt wants to be is cruel.

 

It’s about a year later that he sees Monica again. She’s a surprise visitor for Newt’s birthday, playing the perfect role of a martyr to her son working very hard for the cause of saving the world. She arrives with a very expensive watch to the LA Shatterdome where he’s been newly stationed and soaks up the attention. She's only here for a few hours, she insists she's busy but must take her darling for dinner.

“You know, you didn’t have to come all this way to give me this,” Newt states, closing the box on the watch before he casts it aside. He can't wear something like this.

“I haven’t seen you properly in so long. Not since, well, it was that night in Berlin wasn’t it?”

“It was,” Newt remarks, gritting his teeth. Monica looks comically out of place sitting on his twin sized bed in his bunk. Her coat is a bright pink that isn’t found in his dull grey world, it seems insubstantial.

“Whatever happened with that young man you were with?”

“We don’t talk anymore,” Newt answers. “This is really not a safe place to just be visiting, Mon.”

“Oh, but you’re my baby, and I’ll be fine,” she dismisses, reaching for a photograph on his nightstand. It's his father and Illia, grey and happy and safe in Boston. “I thought you’d want to find someone and settle down so I’m surprised to hear-” 

“In what world does it look like I’d want to settle down?” Newt asks, crossing his arms across his chest. “I’m fucking busy working.”

“I just thought if you found someone maybe you’d be more content in yourself, you know.” Monica puts down the frame with a finality, as though her point makes any sort of sense.

“I’m gonna pretend you’re not saying this. The sheer...the pure overwhelming irony,” he grits his teeth. “Of you telling me you want me to settle down is ridiculous.”

They stare at each other a few long moments, neither blinking. Newt no longer finds a secret sadness lurks in his mother’s eyes, at least nothing that isn’t of her own making. He understands enough now to know that he loves Monica completely because he chooses to love her, but not out of necessity. He’s given up a necessary love because of her and he knows far too well what that gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach feels. He longs for something he barely had.

“I just want you to be happy,” Monica sniffs, shifting her legs so she can cross them elegantly. There’s a run in her stocking and Newt delights in this flaw far too much.

“No, you don’t. You want me to be happy in a very specific way so it’ll make you look good, make you feel good. Since I was a tiny kid you only wanted me for what you could get out of having me around, and I kept falling short.”

“You’ve always been so dramatic. I remember once you made a scene at a restaurant because you were a little tired and made your father come get you.”

“I was a kid and I was exhausted,” Newt snaps. He remembers acutely how hopeless he felt, how he all but begged to call his father. How this wasn’t even that abnormal of a situation for his mother to put him in.

Monica huffs. “Newt, I’m just trying to be a good mother and-”

“Mother is debatable. In fact, you’re only allowed to use that label because I let you. Good was shot out the window years ago.”

“I've always tried to do right by you.”

“Ah, was it the abandonment or misgendering that really drove home the parenting? I'm dying to know, Monica.”

“I wasn't cut out to be a mother but I did my best.”

Newt laughs, shoves his hands in his pockets and laughs her off. “Your best was shit. The only thing you've given me is insecurity and fear in the face of loving someone. That's not what a parent should give her son.”

“Don't go blaming your failures on me, Newt.” Monica stands abruptly, strides to the door. “I do worry about you, you know. Being so close to the face of danger. Those awful creatures.”

For a moment, something genuine passes between them. For a moment Monica's worry is enough, a significant and palpable thing. And then she presses a kiss to Newt's cheek and glides away.

 

With each year of his life, Newt hates that he was right in his wish that the only man he’ll love is Hermann Gottlieb. Apparently he’s not his mother and has a heart that’s fully capable of breaking. Apparently he’s designed to love deeply and for a long time and forcing himself to step away from someone does more harm than good. 

They come back together and fight spectacularly- they argue and shout and confront each other over everything but the thing that’s weighing on Newt so heavily. He’s not so oblivious that he doesn’t feel the hurt in each of Hermann’s insults hurled his way, but he doesn’t know how to soothe them. He doesn’t know if the feelings would be welcome or not after several years. They share a space now, they work together, and while being enemies is awful, romantic rejection stings in a way Newt can’t fully articulate.

Then there’s a night where everything changes. It’s not an exceptional night. Newt’s just finished showering when Hermann knocks on his door. He stands in his doorway for a few long moments, barefoot in just boxers and a MIT hoodie, before letting Hermann step in. Hermann’s still in his clothes from work, a chalk covered sweater and unflattering slacks.

“Everything alright, man?” Newt asks, pulling out his desk chair for Hermann to sit.

“Quite fine, Newton. I needed to step away from my room after a heated phone call with my father.”

“The wall again?”

“When bloody isn’t it with that man?”

Hermann’s pointedly not sitting in the offered chair, but standing. Newt has given him enough opportunity and takes a seat on his bed.

“I’m sorry, having him for a dad must suck,” Newt remarks. The more he learns about Lars, the less he likes him, which really is a surprise only because of how little he liked Lars to begin with.

“That’s not the point,” Hermann says, seemingly annoyed that Newt’s not keeping up with him. “I was thinking about your mother.”

Newt laughs nervously. “Kinda weird, dude, but alright. I don’t ever think about her so someone’s gotta.”

“I’m not- this is a roundabout way of saying I was reminded of that night when I met her.”

“Oh. That.”

Without any further ado, Hermann sits down on the bed beside Newt.

“Hermann, buddy, have you been drinking?” Newt asks.

“Perhaps I’ve had a drink, yes. But that doesn’t change what I’m feeling right now.”

“What are you feeling?”

“Anger. Sorrow. Regret. I hate that I’ll never know why you left that night, if I did something wrong to hurt you. And I’m angry that you left, because I was still owed an explanation.”

It takes a few moments to process anything that Hermann is saying, to understand what he’s trying to voice. Newt had assumed by now Hermann would have buried it to deeply to bring up.

“I realized I was her,” Newt explains. “And I didn’t want to start that cycle of hurting you.”

“So you hurt me once and really made it count?”

“I hurt you once so I didn't keep hurting you. If my leaving could have not hurt you, I would have done it that way.”

“You didn't have to hurt me at all.”

“I know that now.” Newt looks anywhere but at Hermann. He thinks of the pictures of Hermann he used to keep taped over his bed, the feeling of regret in his stomach as he took them down. They're shoved in a drawer somewhere, given the same importance as his family photos despite everything. There’s nothing but what he needs on his nightstand now, his medication, a small alarm clock, his glasses when he’s sleeping.

“I wanted to be with you. To be your partner, I thought that was abundantly clear.”

“It was just fucking,” Newt says, and the words tumble out harshly before he can save himself.

“No, it wasn't.” Hermann's not arguing, he's stating a fact, indisputable.

“How are you so sure?”

“I'm not, but I believe it wasn't. I don't think you'd have slept with me knowing how I felt for you, without also feeling the same.”

“Hermann.”

“Newton, I'm still in love with you.”

It feels like Newt's been submerged in a pool of cold water, a complete shock to his system. Hermann must have forgotten he never said that he loves Newt in the first place. Or it's always been unspoken. Or maybe he has and Newt’s the one who’s forgotten and that simply sounds awful and out of character, because he certainly would remember. He’s too in his own head to respond, to have something appropriate to say, and so Hermann draws away.

“Alright, I’ll be back to my room then,” Hermann says, reaching for his cane where it sits against Newt’s desk. “No need to make more of a fool of myself.”

“Don’t go. I’m sorry,” Newt answers and takes his hand. “I shouldn’t have ever left.”

“You did what you felt you must. I can’t pretend to not be hurt by it, but I do know you meant...as well as you could in the circumstances.”

“I ran away because I didn’t want to be like my mother without realizing that running away is exactly what she’d do.”

“How fortunate that you can’t escape me now.” Hermann knocks his shoulder against Newt’s.

“Maybe that was the secret all along, make my dad and Mon have to try to save the world together and then they’d have worked things out.”

“This isn’t about your parents, Newton. This is about you and me, which is a rather separate thing.”

Newt looks over at Hermann as though something is dawning for the first time. “You’re right, much as I hate to admit that. Monica’s not a prophecy she’s just...this shitty part of my life, who thankfully only calls me once a year.”

Hermann offers a smile. “She is certainly not a prophecy.”

“I loved you so much when we first met,” Newt admits. “I was so overwhelmed by how much, and then when I saw you again it all came back but I figured you were way, way over it what I did.”

“I wished I was.” Hermann reaches for his hand and lifts it to his mouth, kissing the back of it. “I don’t wish now, as per my earlier confession.”

“Yeah, about that…”

“Yes, Newton?”

Words, the feeble things they are, don’t have a way of conveying what he means, so instead Newt leans forward and kisses Hermann. It only takes a moment for Hermann to kiss him back and Newt can tell he’s smiling, can feel the joy against his mouth. He thinks for just a moment as Hermann deepens the kiss, of the photographs buried at the bottom of his drawer. Then that moment disappears because there are new things to capture, to keep and display over his bed or on his nightstand.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on twitter @ newtguzzler and tumblr @ pendragoff


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